Q3. E-mail writing
Write an E-mall to an English professor, requesting him/her to be the judge for the poetry
composition
competition of your school, Give details about the date, time, and venue.
Answers
Answer
A Writer’s Guide to Fair Use and Permissions + Sample Permissions Letter
Posted on July 15, 2019 by Jane Friedman | 159 Comments
when you need permission - fair use guidelines
Andrea Costa Photography / Flickr
Note from Jane: This post was originally published several years ago, but has been updated and expanded.
Whenever you decide to directly quote, excerpt, or reproduce someone else’s work in your own—whether that’s a book, blog, magazine article, or something else—you have to consider, for each use, whether or not it’s necessary to seek explicit, legal permission from the work’s creator or owner.
Unfortunately, quoting or excerpting someone else’s work falls into one of the grayest areas of copyright law. There is no legal rule stipulating what quantity is OK to use without seeking permission from the owner or creator of the material. Major legal battles have been fought over this question, but there is still no black-and-white rule.
However, probably the biggest “rule” that you’ll find—if you’re searching online or asking around—is: “Ask explicit permission for everything beyond X.”
What constitutes “X” depends on whom you ask. Some people say 300 words. Some say one line. Some say 10% of the word count.
But any rules you find are based on a general institutional guideline or a person’s experience, as well as their overall comfort level with the risk involved in directly quoting and excerpting work. That’s why opinions and guidelines vary so much. Furthermore, each and every instance of quoting/excerpting the same work may have a different answer as to whether you need permission.
So there is no one rule you can apply, only principles. So I hope to provide some clarity on those principles in this post.
When do you NOT need to seek permission?
You do not need to seek permission for work that’s in the public domain. This isn’t always a simple matter to determine, but as of Jan. 1, 2019, any work published before 1924 is in the public domain. (As of Jan. 1, 2020, it will be any work published before 1925, and so on.)
Some works published after 1924 are also in the public domain. Read this guide from Stanford about how to determine if a work is in the public domain.
You also do not need to seek permission when you’re simply mentioning the title or author of a work. It’s like citing a fact. Any time you state unadorned facts—like a list of the 50 states in the United States—you are not infringing on anyone’s copyright.
It’s also fine to link to something online from your website, blog, or publication. Linking does not require permission.
Finally, if your use falls within “fair use,” you do not need permission. This is where we enter the trickiest area of all when it comes to permissions.
What constitutes “fair use” and thus doesn’t require permission?
There are four criteria for determining fair use, which sounds tidy, but it’s not. These criteria are vague and open to interpretation. Ultimately, when disagreement arises over what constitutes fair use, it’s up to the courts to make a decision.
The four criteria are:
The purpose and character of the use. For example, a distinction is often made between commercial and not-for-profit/educational use. If the purpose of your work is commercial (to make money), that doesn’t mean you’re suddenly in violation of fair use. But it makes your case less sympathetic if you’re borrowing a lot of someone else’s work to prop up your own commercial venture.
The nature of the copyrighted work. Facts cannot be copyrighted. More creative or imaginative works generally get the strongest protection.
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the entire quoted work. The law does not offer any percentage or word count here that we can go by. That’s because if the portion quoted is considered the most valuable part of the work, you may be violating fair use. That said, most publishers’ guidelines for authors offer a rule of thumb; at the publisher I worked at, that guideline was 200-300 words from a book-length work.
The effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the quoted work. If your use of the original work affects the likelihood that people will buy the original work, you can be in violation of fair use. That is: If you quote the material extensively, or in a way that the original source would no longer be required, then you’re possibly affecting the market for the quoted work. (Don’t confuse this criteria with the purpose of reviews or criticism. If a negative review would dissuade people from buying the source, this is not related to the fair use discussion in this post.)
To further explore what these four criteria mean in practice, be sure to read this excellent article by attorney Howard Zaharoff that originally appeared in Writer’s Digest magazine: “A Writers’ Guide to Fair Use.”
Email to professor inviting him to judge the competition.
Subject - Request to judge the poetry composition competition.
Sir,
Hope you are in good health. Our school is going to organise an inter-school poetry composition competition, where more than ten schools are going to participate.
I, on behalf of the organising committee of this competition, cordially request you to judge the event. The competition is organised on 10 September, 2020 from 9:30 AM. The venue of the competition is City Hall Auditorium, Lucknow.
The chief guests for the competition will be Dr Abdi, author of four poetry books and chairman of Lucknow Poetry Association.
Your presence will be highly obliged.
Thank you,
Rashi Mishra,
Poetry Committee,
Little Flowers School.